According to contemporary scientific research, the human person
is so profoundly affected by sexuality that it must be considered as one of the
factors which give to each individual's life the principal traits that
distinguish it. In fact it is from sex that the human person receives the
characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels,
make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her
progress towards maturity and insertion into society. Hence sexual matters, as
is obvious to everyone, today constitute a theme frequently and openly dealt
with in books, reviews, magazines and other means of social communication.

In the present period, the corruption of morals has increased,
and one of the most serious indications of this corruption is the unbridled
exaltation of sex. Moreover, through the means of social communication and
through public entertainment this corruption has reached the point of invading
the field of education and of infecting the general mentality.

In this context certain educators, teachers and moralists have
been able to contribute to a better understanding and integration into life of
the values proper to each of the sexes; on the other hand there are those who
have put forward concepts and modes of behavior which are contrary to the true
moral exigencies of the human person. Some members of the latter group have even
gone so far as to favor a licentious hedonism.

As a result, in the course of a few years, teachings, moral
criteria and modes of living hitherto faithfully preserved have been very much
unsettled, even among Christians. There are many people today who, being
confronted with widespread opinions opposed to the teaching which they received
from the Church, have come to wonder what must still hold as true.

II

The Church cannot remain indifferent to this confusion of minds
and relaxation of morals. It is a question, in fact, of a matter which is of the
utmost importance both for the personal lives of Christians and for the social
life of our time.[1]

The Bishops are daily led to note the growing difficulties
experienced by the faithful in obtaining knowledge of wholesome moral teaching,
especially in sexual matters, and of the growing difficulties experienced by
pastors in expounding this teaching effectively. The Bishops know that by their
pastoral charge they are called upon to meet the needs of their faithful in this
very serious matter, and important documents dealing with it have already been
published by some of them or by episcopal conferences. Nevertheless, since the
erroneous opinions and resulting deviations are continuing to spread everywhere,
the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, by virtue of its function
in the universal Church[2] and by a mandate of the Supreme Pontiff, has judged
it necessary to publish the present Declaration.

III

The people of our time are more and more convinced that the
human person's dignity and vocation demand that they should discover, by the
light of their own intelligence, the values innate in their nature, that they
should ceaselessly develop these values and realize them in their lives, in
order to achieve an ever greater development.

In moral matters man cannot make value judgments according to
his personal whim: "In the depths of his conscience, man detects a law
which he does not impose on himself, but which holds him to obedience. . . . For
man has in his heart a law written by God. To obey it is the very dignity of
man; according to it he will be judged."[3]

Moreover, through His revelation God has made known to us
Christians His plan of salvation, and He has held up to us Christ, the Savior
and Sanctifier, in His teaching and example, as the supreme and immutable Law of
life: "I am the light of the world; anyone who follows Me will not be
walking in the dark, he will have the light of life."[4]

Therefore there can be no true promotion of man's dignity unless
the essential order of his nature is respected. Of course, in the history of
civilization many of the concrete conditions and needs of human life have
changed and will continue to change. But all evolution of morals and every type
of life must be kept within the limits imposed by the immutable principles based
upon every human person's constitutive elements and essential relations -
elements and relations which transcend historical contingency.

These fundamental principles, which can be grasped by reason,
are contained in "the Divine Law - eternal, objective and universal -
whereby God orders, directs and governs the entire universe and all the ways of
the human community, by a plan conceived in wisdom and love. Man has been made
by God to participate in this law, with the result that, under the gentle
disposition of Divine Providence, he can come to perceive ever increasingly the
unchanging truth."[5] This Divine Law is accessible to our minds.

IV

Hence, those many people are in error who today assert that one
can find neither in human nature nor in the revealed law any absolute and
immutable norm to serve for particular actions other than the one which
expresses itself in the general law of charity and respect for human dignity. As
a proof of their assertion they put forward the view that so-called norms of the
natural law or precepts of Sacred Scripture are to be regarded only as given
expressions of a form of particular culture at a certain moment of history.

But in fact, Divine Revelation and, in its own proper order,
philosophical wisdom, emphasize the authentic exigencies of human nature. They
thereby necessarily manifest the existence of immutable laws inscribed in the
constitutive elements of human nature and which are revealed to be identical in
all beings endowed with reason.

Furthermore, Christ instituted His Church as "the pillar
and bulwark of truth."[6] With the Holy Spirit's assistance, she
ceaselessly preserves and transmits without error the truths of the moral order,
and she authentically interprets not only the revealed positive law but
"also . . . those principles of the moral order which have their origin in
human nature itself"[7] and which concern man's full development and
sanctification. Now in fact the Church throughout her history has always
considered a certain number of precepts of the natural law as having an absolute
and immutable value, and in their transgression she has seen a contradiction of
the teaching and spirit of the Gospel.

V

Since sexual ethics concern fundamental values of human and
Christian life, this general teaching equally applies to sexual ethics. In this
domain there exist principles and norms which the Church has always
unhesitatingly transmitted as part of her teaching, however much the opinions
and morals of the world may have been opposed to them. These principles and
norms in no way owe their origin to a certain type of culture, but rather to
knowledge of the Divine Law and of human nature. They therefore cannot be
considered as having become out of date or doubtful under the pretext that a new
cultural situation has arisen.

It is these principles which inspired the exhortations and
directives given by the Second Vatican Council for an education and an
organization of social life taking account of the equal dignity of man and woman
while respecting their difference.[8]

Speaking of "the sexual nature of man and the human faculty
of procreation," the Council noted that they "wonderfully exceed the
dispositions of lower forms of life."[9] It then took particular care to
expound the principles and criteria which concern human sexuality in marriage,
and which are based upon the finality of the specific function of sexuality.

In this regard the Council declares that the moral goodness of
the acts proper to conjugal life, acts which are ordered according to true human
dignity, "does not depend solely on sincere intentions or on an evaluation
of motives. It must be determined by objective standards. These, based on the
nature of the human person and his acts, preserve the full sense of mutual
self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love."[10]

These final words briefly sum up the Council's teaching - more
fully expounded in an earlier part of the same Constitution[11] - on the
finality of the sexual act and on the principal criterion of its morality: it is
respect for its finality that ensures the moral goodness of this act.

This same principle, which the Church holds from Divine
Revelation and from her authentic interpretation of the natural law, is also the
basis of her traditional doctrine, which states that the use of the sexual
function has its true meaning and moral rectitude only in true marriage.[12]

VI

It is not the purpose of the present Declaration to deal with
all the abuses of the sexual faculty, nor with all the elements involved in the
practice of chastity. Its object is rather to repeat the Church's doctrine on
certain particular points, in view of the urgent need to oppose serious errors
and widespread aberrant modes of behavior.

VII

Today there are many who vindicate the right to sexual union
before marriage, at least in those cases where a firm intention to marry and an
affection which is already in some way conjugal in the psychology of the
subjects require this completion, which they judge to be connatural. This is
especially the case when the celebration of the marriage is impeded by
circumstances or when this intimate relationship seems necessary in order for
love to be preserved.

This opinion is contrary to Christian doctrine, which states
that every genital act must be within the framework of marriage. However firm
the intention of those who practice such premature sexual relations may be, the
fact remains that these relations cannot ensure, in sincerity and fidelity, the
interpersonal relationship between a man and a woman, nor especially can they
protect this relationship from whims and caprices. Now it is a stable union that
Jesus willed, and He restored its original requirement, beginning with the
sexual difference. "Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning
made them male and female and that He said: This is why a man must leave father
and mother, and cling to his wife, and the two become one body? They are no
longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not
divide."[13] St. Paul will be even more explicit when he shows that if
unmarried people or widows cannot live chastely they have no other alternative
than the stable union of marriage: ". . .it is better to marry than to be
aflame with passion."[14] Through marriage, in fact, the love of married
people is taken up into that love which Christ irrevocably has for the
Church,[15] while dissolute sexual union[16] defiles the temple of the Holy
Spirit which the Christian has become. Sexual union therefore is only legitimate
if a definitive community of life has been established between the man and the
woman.

This is what the Church has always understood and taught,[17]
and she finds a profound agreement with her doctrine in men's reflection and in
the lessons of history.

Experience teaches us that love must find its safeguard in the
stability of marriage, if sexual intercourse is truly to respond to the
requirements of its own finality and to those of human dignity. These
requirements call for a conjugal contract sanctioned and guaranteed by society -
a contract which establishes a state of life of capital importance both for the
exclusive union of the man and the woman and for the good of their family and of
the human community. Most often, in fact, premarital relations exclude the
possibility of children. What is represented to be conjugal love is not able, as
it absolutely should be, to develop into paternal and maternal love. Or, if it
does happen to do so, this will be to the detriment of the children, who will be
deprived of the stable environment in which they ought to develop in order to
find in it the way and the means of their insertion into society as a whole.

The consent given by people who wish to be united in marriage
must therefore be manifested externally and in a manner which makes it valid in
the eyes of society. As far as the faithful are concerned, their consent to the
setting up of a community of conjugal life must be expressed according to the
laws of the Church. It is a consent which makes their marriage a Sacrament of
Christ.

VIII

At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on
observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and
even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This
they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the
moral sense of the Christian people.

A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between
homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal
sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes,
and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are
definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological
constitution judged to be incurable.

In regard to this second category of subjects, some people
conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case
homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to
marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary
life.

In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be
treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their
personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability
will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would
give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be
consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective
moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and
indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious
depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[18] This
judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those
who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does
attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in
no case be approved of.

IX

The traditional Catholic doctrine that masturbation constitutes
a grave moral disorder is often called into doubt or expressly denied today. It
is said that psychology and sociology show that it is a normal phenomenon of
sexual development, especially among the young. It is stated that there is real
and serious fault only in the measure that the subject deliberately indulges in
solitary pleasure closed in on self ("ipsation"), because in this case
the act would indeed be radically opposed to the loving communion between
persons of different sex which some hold is what is principally sought in the
use of the sexual faculty.

This opinion is contradictory to the teaching and pastoral
practice of the Catholic Church. Whatever the force of certain arguments of a
biological and philosophical nature, which have sometimes been used by
theologians, in fact both the Magisterium of the Church - in the course of a
constant tradition - and the moral sense of the faithful have declared without
hesitation that masturbation is an intrinsically and seriously disordered
act.[19] The main reason is that, whatever the motive for acting this way, the
deliberate use of the sexual faculty outside normal conjugal relations
essentially contradicts the finality of the faculty. For it lacks the sexual
relationship called for by the moral order, namely the relationship which
realizes "the full sense of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the
context of true love."[20] All deliberate exercise of sexuality must be
reserved to this regular relationship. Even if it cannot be proved that
Scripture condemns this sin by name, the tradition of the Church has rightly
understood it to be condemned in the New Testament when the latter speaks of
"impurity," "unchasteness" and other vices contrary to
chastity and continence.

Sociological surveys are able to show the frequency of this
disorder according to the places, populations or circumstances studied. In this
way facts are discovered, but facts do not constitute a criterion for judging
the moral value of human acts.[21] The frequency of the phenomenon in question
is certainly to be linked with man's innate weakness following original sin; but
it is also to be linked with the loss of a sense of God, with the corruption of
morals engendered by the commercialization of vice, with the unrestrained
licentiousness of so many public entertainments and publications, as well as
with the neglect of modesty, which is the guardian of chastity.

On the subject of masturbation modern psychology provides much
valid and useful information for formulating a more equitable judgment on moral
responsibility and for orienting pastoral action. Psychology helps one to see
how the immaturity of adolescence (which can sometimes persist after that age),
psychological imbalance or habit can influence behavior, diminishing the
deliberate character of the act and bringing about a situation whereby
subjectively there may not always be serious fault. But in general, the absence
of serious responsibility must not be presumed; this would be to misunderstand
people's moral capacity.

In the pastoral ministry, in order to form an adequate judgment
in concrete cases, the habitual behavior of people will be considered in its
totality, not only with regard to the individual's practice of charity and of
justice but also with regard to the individual's care in observing the
particular precepts of chastity. In particular, one will have to examine whether
the individual is using the necessary means, both natural and supernatural,
which Christian asceticism from its long experience recommends for overcoming
the passions and progressing in virtue.

X

The observance of the moral law in the field of sexuality and
the practice of chastity have been considerably endangered, especially among
less fervent Christians, by the current tendency to minimize as far as possible,
when not denying outright, the reality of grave sin, at least in people's actual
lives.

There are those who go as far as to affirm that mortal sin,
which causes separation from God, only exists in the formal refusal directly
opposed to God's call, or in that selfishness which completely and deliberately
closes itself to the love of neighbor. They say that it is only then that there
comes into play the fundamental option, that is to say the decision which
totally commits the person and which is necessary if mortal sin is to exist; by
this option the person, from the depths of the personality, takes up or ratifies
a fundamental attitude towards God or people. On the contrary, so-called
"peripheral" actions (which, it is said, usually do not involve
decisive choice), do not go so far as to change the fundamental option, the less
so since they often come, as is observed, from habit. Thus such actions can
weaken the fundamental option, but not to such a degree as to change it
completely. Now according to these authors, a change of the fundamental option
towards God less easily comes about in the field of sexual activity, where a
person generally does not transgress the moral order in a fully deliberate and
responsible manner but rather under the influence of passion, weakness,
immaturity, sometimes even through the illusion of thus showing love for someone
else. To these causes there is often added the pressure of the social
environment.

In reality, it is precisely the fundamental option which in the
last resort defines a person's moral disposition. But it can be completely
changed by particular acts, especially when, as often happens, these have been
prepared for by previous more superficial acts. Whatever the case, it is wrong
to say that particular acts are not enough to constitute mortal sin.

According to the Church's teaching, mortal sin, which is opposed
to God, does not consist only in formal and direct resistance to the commandment
of charity. It is equally to be found in this opposition to authentic love which
is included in every deliberate transgression, in serious matter, of each of the
moral laws.

Christ Himself has indicated the double commandment of love as
the basis of the moral life. But on this commandment depends "the whole
Law, and the Prophets also."[22] It therefore includes the other particular
precepts. In fact, to the young man who asked, ". . . what good deed must I
do to possess eternal life?" Jesus replied: ". . . if you wish to
enter into life, keep the commandments . . . . You must not kill. You must not
commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not bring false witness. Honor
your father and mother, and: you must love your neighbor as yourself."[23]

A person therefore sins mortally not only when his action comes
from direct contempt for love of God and neighbor, but also when he consciously
and freely, for whatever reason, chooses something which is seriously
disordered. For in this choice, as has been said above, there is already
included contempt for the Divine commandment: the person turns himself away from
God and loses charity. Now according to Christian tradition and the Church's
teaching, and as right reason also recognizes, the moral order of sexuality
involves such high values of human life that every direct violation of this
order is objectively serious.[24]

It is true that in sins of the sexual order, in view of their
kind and their causes, it more easily happens that free consent is not fully
given; this is a fact which calls for caution in all judgment as to the
subject's responsibility. In this matter it is particularly opportune to recall
the following words of Scripture: "Man looks at appearances but God looks
at the heart."[25] However, although prudence is recommended in judging the
subjective seriousness of a particular sinful act, it in no way follows that one
can hold the view that in the sexual field mortal sins are not committed.

Pastors of souls must therefore exercise patience and goodness;
but they are not allowed to render God's commandments null, nor to reduce
unreasonably people's responsibility. "To diminish in no way the saving
teaching of Christ constitutes an eminent form of charity for souls. But this
must ever be accompanied by patience and goodness, such as the Lord Himself gave
example of in dealing with people. Having come not to condemn but to save, He
was indeed intransigent with evil, but merciful towards individuals."[26]

XI

As has been said above, the purpose of this Declaration is to
draw the attention of the faithful in present-day circumstances to certain
errors and modes of behavior which they must guard against. The virtue of
chastity, however, is in no way confined solely to avoiding the faults already
listed. It is aimed at attaining higher and more positive goals. It is a virtue
which concerns the whole personality, as regards both interior and outward
behavior.

Individuals should be endowed with this virtue according to
their state in life: for some it will mean virginity or celibacy consecrated to
God, which is an eminent way of giving oneself more easily to God alone with an
undivided heart.[27] For others it will take the form determined by the moral
law, according to whether they are married or single. But whatever the state of
life, chastity is not simply an external state; it must make a person's heart
pure in accordance with Christ's words: "You have learned how it was said:
You must not commit adultery. But I say this to you: if a man looks at a woman
lustfully, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart."[28]

Chastity is included in that continence which St. Paul numbers
among the gifts of the Holy Spirit, while he condemns sensuality as a vice
particularly unworthy of the Christian and one which precludes entry into the
Kingdom of Heaven.[29] "What God wants is for all to be holy. He wants you
to keep away from fornication, and each one of you know how to use the body that
belongs to him in a way that is holy and honorable, not giving way to selfish
lust like the pagans who do not know God. He wants nobody at all ever to sin by
taking advantage of a brother in these matters. . . . We have been called by God
to be holy, not to be immoral. In other words, anyone who objects is not
objecting to a human authority, but to God, Who gives you His Holy
Spirit."[30] "Among you there must not be even a mention of
fornication or impurity in any of its forms, or promiscuity: this would hardly
become the saints! For you can be quite certain that nobody who actually
indulges in fornication or impurity or promiscuity - which is worshipping a
false god - can inherit anything of the Kingdom of God. Do not let anyone
deceive you with empty arguments: it is for this loose living that God's anger
comes down on those who rebel against Him. Make sure that you are not included
with them. You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; be like
children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness
and right living and truth."[31]

In addition, the Apostle points out the specifically Christian
motive for practising chastity when he condemns the sin of fornication not only
in the measure that this action is injurious to one's neighbor or to the social
order but because the fornicator offends against Christ Who has redeemed him
with His blood and of Whom he is a member, and against the Holy Spirit of Whom
he is the temple. "You know, surely, that your bodies are members making up
the body of Christ. . . . All the other sins are committed outside the body; but
to fornicate is to sin against your own body. Your body, you know, is the temple
of the Holy Spirit, Who is in you since you received Him from God. You are not
your own property; you have been bought and paid for. That is why you should use
your body for the glory of God."[32]

The more the faithful appreciate the value of chastity and its
necessary role in their lives as men and women, the better they will understand,
by a kind of spiritual instinct, its moral requirements and counsels. In the
same way they will know better how to accept and carry out, in a spirit of
docility to the Church's teaching, what an upright conscience dictates in
concrete cases.

XII

The Apostle St. Paul describes in vivid terms the painful
interior conflict of the person enslaved to sin: the conflict between "the
law of his mind" and the "law of sin which dwells in his members"
and which holds him captive.[33] But man can achieve liberation from his
"body doomed to death" through the grace of Jesus Christ.[34] This
grace is enjoyed by those who have been justified by it and whom "the law
of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set free from the law of sin and
death."[35] It is for this reason that the Apostle adjures them: "That
is why you must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your
obedience to bodily passions."[36]

This liberation, which fits one to serve God in newness of life,
does not however suppress the concupiscence deriving from original sin, nor the
promptings to evil in this world, which is "in the power of the evil
one."[37] This is why the Apostle exhorts the faithful to overcome
temptations by the power of God[38] and to "stand against the wiles of the
Devil"[39] by faith, watchful prayer[40] and an austerity of life that
brings the body into subjection to the Spirit.[41]

Living the Christian life by following in the footsteps of
Christ requires that everyone should "deny himself and take up his cross
daily,"[42] sustained by the hope of reward, for "if we have died with
Him, we shall also reign with Him."[43] In accordance with these pressing
exhortations, the faithful of the present time, and indeed today more than ever,
must use the means which have always been recommended by the Church for living a
chaste life. These means are: discipline of the senses and the mind,
watchfulness and prudence in avoiding occasions of sin, the observance of
modesty, moderation in recreation, wholesome pursuits, assiduous prayer and
frequent reception of the Sacraments of Penance and the Eucharist. Young people
especially should earnestly foster devotion to the Immaculate Mother of God, and
take as examples the lives of saints and other faithful people, especially young
ones, who excelled in the practice of chastity.

It is important in particular that everyone should have a high
esteem for the virtue of chastity, its beauty and its power of attraction. This
virtue increases the human person's dignity and enables him to love truly,
disinterestedly, unselfishly and with respect for others.

XIII

It is up to the Bishops to instruct the faithful in the moral
teaching concerning sexual morality, however great may be the difficulties in
carrying out this work in the face of ideas and practices generally prevailing
today. This traditional doctrine must be studied more deeply. It must be handed
on in a way capable of properly enlightening the consciences of those confronted
with new situations and it must be enriched with a discernment of all the
elements that can truthfully and usefully be brought forward about the meaning
and value of human sexuality. But the principles and norms of moral living
reaffirmed in this Declaration must be faithfully held and taught. It will
especially be necessary to bring the faithful to understand that the Church
holds these principles not as old and inviolable superstitions, nor out of some
Manichaean prejudice, as is often alleged, but rather because she knows with
certainty that they are in complete harmony with the Divine order of creation
and with the spirit of Christ, and therefore also with human dignity.

It is likewise the Bishops' mission to see that a sound doctrine
enlightened by faith and directed by the Magisterium of the Church is taught in
faculties of theology and in seminaries. Bishops must also ensure that
confessors enlighten people's consciences and that catechetical instruction is
given in perfect fidelity to Catholic doctrine.

It rests with the Bishops, the priests and their collaborators
to alert the faithful against the erroneous opinions often expressed in books,
reviews and public meetings.

Parents, in the first place, and also teachers of the young must
endeavor to lead their children and their pupils, by way of a complete
education, to the psychological, emotional and moral maturity befitting their
age. They will therefore prudently give them information suited to their age;
and they will assiduously form their wills in accordance with Christian morals,
not only by advice but above all by the example of their own lives, relying on
God's help, which they will obtain in prayer. They will likewise protect the
young from the many dangers of which they are quite unaware.

Artists, writers and all those who use the means of social
communication should exercise their profession in accordance with their
Christian faith and with a clear awareness of the enormous influence which they
can have. They should remember that "the primacy of the objective moral
order must be regarded as absolute by all,"[44] and that it is wrong for
them to give priority above it to any so-called aesthetic purpose, or to
material advantage or to success. Whether it be a question of artistic or
literary works, public entertainment or providing information, each individual
in his or her own domain must show tact, discretion, moderation and a true sense
of values. In this way, far from adding to the growing permissiveness of
behavior, each individual will contribute towards controlling it and even
towards making the moral climate of society more wholesome.

All lay people, for their part, by virtue of their rights and
duties in the work of the apostolate, should endeavor to act in the same way.

Finally, it is necessary to remind everyone of the words of the
Second Vatican Council: "This Holy Synod likewise affirms that children and
young people have a right to be encouraged to weigh moral values with an upright
conscience, and to embrace them by personal choice, to know and love more
adequately. Hence, it earnestly entreats all who exercise government over people
or preside over the work of education to see that youth is never deprived of
this sacred right."[45]

At the audience granted on November 7, 1975, to the
undersigned Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith,
the Sovereign Pontiff by Divine Providence Pope Paul VI approved this
Declaration "On certain questions concerning sexual ethics," confirmed
it and ordered its publication.

Given in Rome, at the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of
the Faith, on December 29th, 1975.

Franjo Cardinal SeperPrefect

Most Rev. Jerome Hamer, O.P. Titular Archbishop
of Lorium Secretary

ENDNOTES

1. Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Constitution on the
Church in the Modern World "Gaudium et Spes," 47 AAS 58 (1966),
p. 1067.

12. The present Declaration does not go into further detail
regarding the norms of sexual life within marriage; these norms have been
clearly taught in the encyclical letter "Casti Connubii" and
"Humanae Vitae."

18. Rom 1:24-27 "That is why God left them to their
filthy enjoyments and the practices with which they dishonor their own bodies
since they have given up Divine truth for a lie and have worshipped and served
creatures instead of the Creator, Who is blessed forever. Amen! That is why God
has abandoned them to degrading passions; why their women have turned from
natural intercourse to unnatural practices and why their menfolk have given up
natural intercourse to be consumed with passion for each other, men doing
shameless things with men and getting an appropriate reward for their
perversion" See also what St. Paul says of "masculorum
concubitores" in I Cor 6:10; I Tim 1:10.

21. ". . . it sociological surveys are useful for better
discovering the thought patterns of the people of a particular place, the
anxieties and needs of those to whom we proclaim the word of God, and also the
opposition made to it by modern reasoning through the widespread notion that
outside science there exists no legitimate form of knowledge, still the
conclusions drawn from such surveys could not of themselves constitute a
determining criterion of truth," Paul VI, apostolic exhortation "Quinque
iam anni." Dec 8th 1970, AAS 63 (1971), p. 102.